Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
A typical cellular wireless network includes a number of base stations that radiate to define wireless coverage areas, such as cells and cell sectors, in which mobile stations such as cell phones, tablet computers, tracking devices, embedded wireless modules, and other wirelessly equipped communication devices, can operate. In turn, each base station may be coupled with equipment that provides connectivity with one or more transport networks, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and/or the Internet for instance. With this arrangement, a mobile station operating in coverage of the network may engage in air interface communication with a base station and may thereby communicate via the base station with various remote network entities or with other mobile stations served by the base station.
In general, a cellular wireless system may operate in accordance with a particular air interface protocol or “radio access technology,” with communications from the base stations to UEs defining a downlink or forward link and communications from the UEs to the base stations defining an uplink or reverse link. Examples of existing air interface protocols include, without limitation, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) (e.g., 1xRTT and 1xEV-DO), Long Term Evolution (LTE), WiMAX, iDEN, TDMA, AMPS, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), GPRS, UMTS, EDGE, MMDS, WI-FI, and BLUETOOTH. Each protocol may define its own procedures for initiation of calls, handoff between coverage areas, and functions related to air interface communication.
In accordance with the air interface protocol, each coverage area may operate on one or more carrier frequencies and may define a number of air interface channels for carrying information between the base station and served mobile stations. These channels may be defined in various ways, such as through frequency division multiplexing, time division multiplexing, and/or code-division multiplexing for instance.
By way of example, each coverage area may define a reference channel or other resource on which the base station may broadcast a reference signal that mobile stations may measure to evaluate coverage strength. As another example, each coverage area may define an uplink control channel or other resource on which mobile stations may transmit control messages such as registration requests and access requests to the base station. And each coverage area may define a downlink control channel or other resource on which the base station may transmit control messages such as system information messages and page messages to mobile stations. Each coverage area may then define one or more traffic channels or other resource for carrying communication traffic such as voice data and other data between the base station and mobile stations.
When a mobile station first powers on or enters into coverage of the network, the mobile station may detect presence of coverage and may register with the network by transmitting a registration request or attach request to a base station. At that point, the mobile station may operate in an idle mode in which the mobile station periodically reads a downlink control channel to receive overhead information from the network and to check for any page messages destined to the mobile station. In the idle mode, the mobile station may have no assigned traffic channel resources on which to receive incoming communication traffic from the network.
When the network has a communication such a voice call or other traffic to provide to a mobile station that is registered with the network but is operating in the idle mode, the network may page the mobile station in an effort to then facilitate assigning traffic channel resources to the mobile station. In particular, the network may transmit on the downlink a page message addressed to the mobile station. Assuming the mobile station receives this page message, the mobile station may then transmit to the network a page response message on the uplink. And upon receipt of the page response message, the network may then assign traffic channel resources to the mobile station, for use to carry the communication.
Once a network transmits a page message to a mobile station, the network may wait a defined period of time for the mobile station to respond. If the mobile station does not respond to the page message within that period of time, the network may then re-page the mobile station, possibly increasing page message transmission power and/or broadening the coverage area scope of the page. Further, the network may repeat this re-paging process a defined number of times before concluding that the paging effort failed. Upon concluding that the paging effort failed, the network may then abort the effort to provide the communication to the mobile station. For an incoming voice call, this may mean that the call may instead be connected to voice mail. For other communication traffic, this may mean that the network may discard or otherwise handle the communication. Other examples are possible as well.